Cyclops Conspiracy: An Adam Weldon Thriller

by William McGinnis

  Sophia made her way around, offering mojitos to these holdouts several times, but each time they refused. Seeing the problem, Tripnee approached Kurt with a big drink in each hand.

  Coquettishly brushing her hip across the front of his tiny Speedo, she said, “Maybe later, after a few drinks, we can take that stroll.”

  Kurt’s eyes lit up. “Forget the drinks, let’s go.”

  “No drinks, no stroll.”

  The man grabbed her wrists, making her drop the glasses, and pulled her toward him. She brought a knee up into his groin with enough force to make him release her arms, but not enough to double him over or draw attention.

  “Bitch.”

  Smiling, Tripnee touched a finger to the man’s lips and spread her other hand on his chest. “Now, now. You’re a strong, clever man. I like you and I’d love to take that stroll. But you’re going to have to act like a gentleman.”

  Apparently amazed and won over by Tripnee’s aplomb—and touch—and promise of bliss to come, Kurt actually nodded.

  Adam had leapt to his feet and started toward them at the beginning of this interaction, when Kurt had seized Tripnee’s wrists. But when Tripnee somehow quickly charmed and mollified the guy, Adam sat back down.

  “So,” Tripnee whispered to Kurt, “we’re going to walk over to the others and socialize and have a few drinks.”

  “And the stroll?”

  “Later,” she said with a wink.

  As Tripnee and Kurt walked past his vantage point at the stern end of the cockpit, Adam took this in. Okay, progress. But the two guys on the bow were going to be trouble.

  The gathering picked up energy. Buzzed with alcohol but not yet feeling the arsenic, the men began refilling their drinks directly from the virulent Mojito bowl. Grabby hands reached with increasing force and frequency for Sophia and Tripnee, but these capable women held their own with deft blocks and parries. Interestingly, Kurt now apparently felt a possessory interest. Being bigger, stronger and something of a natural leader, he, with an occasional word or look and with a few solid punches, helped keep his companions in check and maintain a certain outward decorum. At least enough for Adam to disappear down the companionway.

  Alone in Dream Voyager’s salon, Adam checked the Glock pistol with silencer jammed into his belt at the small of his back. Satisfied, he crept toward the bow. He eased himself onto an upper bunk in the forward-most cabin directly below a partially open ventilation hatch. Controlling his breathing, careful to make absolutely no sound, he listened to the conversation on the deck above.

  A voice said quietly in Arabic, “Can you believe this Adam guy?” It was Dido’s captain, Ismail Kazmi.

  Humbaba’s captain, Abd Quddus, replied, “The guy’s an infidel kafir asshole. A complete fool.”

  “I wonder.”

  “He’s back there somewhere sitting on his ass getting drunk while his women throw themselves at our men.”

  “But is he really drunk?” Kazmi asked. “A while ago I saw him jump up, looking damned alert.”

  “Yeah, I saw that, too. But he plopped right back down when the booze hit him.”

  “I don’t know. Something about the guy, and the women, too, worries me.”

  “How so?”

  “Something’s not right. It’s like they just want to get us all drunk.”

  “To what end? To rob us? There’re too many of us.”

  “I dunno. I smell a rat. It’s a weird party.”

  “Maybe,” Quddus said, “you’re so deep into taqiyya and deception, you think everyone is lying and up to no good.”

  “You know, brother, everyone is up to no good.”

  “You worry too much,” Quddus said. “They’re typical decadent Americans. It’s an infidel party.”

  “You don’t think they know something?”

  “These people know nothing, suspect nothing. They’re way too stupid. I’ve seen it a hundred times. This right here is the decadent West. It’s why Islam will triumph.”

  “If the Great Satan is so stupid,” Kazmi asked, “why are our men drooling over those women? Our men are thinking with their cocks.”

  “Don’t worry. These women are kafirs, infidels. They don’t matter. And the men are learning how to mingle with Americans and practice the cover story.”

  “I’m telling you something’s just not right. I’ll bet if I search this boat, we’ll find that these aren’t just typical decadent Westerners.”

  At that moment, fingers grasped the hatch lid inches above Adam’s head. Adam barely had time to slide down and tuck into the lower bunk.

  Kazmi dropped through the hatch onto the upper bunk, then slid off it. As his feet hit the deck, Adam clamped a hand over his mouth and with a swift rotation of the neck killed the guy.

  Quddus’ face appeared in the hatchway above. As the man’s vision adjusted to the near total darkness of the cabin, his eyes popped wide. The instant he opened his mouth to yell, Adam brought up his silenced pistol and put a bullet between his eyes. Psst. Reaching up, Adam pulled Quddus’s limp body down through the opening.

  As he started to reach up again to close the hatch, footsteps came near on the deck above. A slurred voice said in Arabic, “Where’d they go? They were here a minute ago.”

  Adam quickly stuffed both bodies out of sight deep into the lower bunk and covered them with a blanket. Then, holding his Glock behind his back, he yelled up through the still open hatchway, “Welcome. Come on down and join the party.”

  A face appeared in the opening. “Some party. Where’re Kazmi and Quddus?”

  Just as Adam was about to bring his Glock around to plug this third guy, hard steel jammed into the back of his neck.

  “Stinking infidel.”

  Adam’s gun was ripped from his grasp. Turning, he looked into the barrel of a large-caliber pistol inches from his left eye. With his other hand, the sweaty terrorist aimed the Glock at Adam’s right eye.

  “What is this?” Adam asked. “You don’t like the party?”

  Coming down through the hatch, the other guy aimed a third pistol at Adam’s head.

  “What were you going to do with this gun?”

  Both men dripped sweat and slurred their words, but showed no signs of passing out. When was the damned arsenic going to kick in?

  “I heard something up on the bow,” Adam said. “Thought it might be prowlers, thieves.”

  Neither gunman looked under the blanket on the lower bunk. The instant they did, Adam was done for.

  “What happened to Kazmi and Quddus?”

  “How would I know? They’re your captains.”

  Noticing the bunk, one of the terrorists said, “What’s this?” and reached for the blanket.

  For a moment, both looked toward the bunk, and that split second was all Adam needed. In one smooth blur of motion, he knocked the three pistols up, seizing them in the same instant. Two in his right hand, the third in his left. Wrenching the weapons free, he dislocated three trigger fingers in the process. Unfortunately, two of the guns went off in the process, emitting loud bangs and sending slugs into the underdeck. Getting his hand onto the grip of his Glock, he put a bullet into the head of each of his guests. Psst, psst. Then, less than a second later, he tapped each noggin again. Psst, psst.

  Fifteen more terrorists aboard, all headed his way. He closed and locked the hatch, and tucked into a corner where he could pick off attackers as they came through the narrow cabin door one-by-one.

  He didn’t have to wait long. In less than a minute, one, two, three terrorists entered, and Adam dropped each with a bullet to the head. Psst, psst, psst.

  No more came through. Seeing the first three cut down no doubt gave the others pause. Adam moved to see up the passageway. Men were backing away. He raised his weapon, but realized they weren’t backing way, but were collapsing backward, forward, in all directions. The arsenic had finally kicked in. It was about bloody fucking time.

  Chapter 17

  Profit

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nbsp; H is eyes alight, Adam outlined a plan to his team. Nodding with approval, they leapt into action, starting the engines and casting off the mooring lines of all three sailboats. With Adam leading on Dido, Tripnee next on Humbaba, and Sophia bringing up the rear on Dream Voyager, they raised anchors and slipped out of Naousa Harbor.

  As soon as they were lost in the night out of sight from the marina, they rafted the boats together and thoroughly searched Dido and Humbaba. On each, as expected, they discovered a suitcase nuke, bags of U.S. currency, and caches of arms and ammo, which they stowed aboard Dream Voyager.

  Then, as the three yachts jostled together in the fierce meltemi, they dragged the nineteen bodies below deck into the other two boats.

  Adam and Tripnee strapped on bulletproof body armor, pulled on black tactical assault clothing, selected their weapons of choice for close-in combat, and made other preparations. Sophia checked her drones and reported Bora and Profit were still rafted together less than a mile away in Ormos Langeri, an anchorage on the east side of Naousa Bay. But there was activity aboard the two boats, which could mean one or both were preparing to depart.

  Adam, Tripnee, and Sophia’s three-boat fleet motored on across the broad bay with all lights out. Sophia, who had her laptops set up around the helm of Dream Voyager, reported over their earbud comms, “Bora’s on the move, but Profit’s staying put. Looks like Dogu’s split his crew.”

  “How many aboard Profit?”

  “I count four.”

  Adapting his plan on the fly, Adam announced, “We take out Profit, then chase Bora.”

  There, a quarter mile away, visible through night-vision goggles, Profit floated peacefully at anchor— all alone. Like a sitting duck.

  Per the plan, Adam split to the right with Dido, Tripnee swung Humbaba left, and Sophia hung back on Dream Voyager. The goal was to eliminate Profit’s crew, recover any nukes, sink Profit, Dido, and Humbaba, and be long gone before the boats or bodies were discovered. So far, so good. Dido and Humbaba’s engines were running smooth, throttles wide open. The two boats accelerated to maximum hull speed. Circling, they converged on Profit—Dido speeding in from the east and Humbaba from the west. Yes! The timing looked good. Adam and Tripnee would burst out of the night and simultaneously crash into Profit. A nice little surprise for its terrorist crew.

  But something was wrong. Muzzle flashes. AK-47 machine gun fire erupted from Profit. Bullets raked Dido’s hull and tore through its windscreen.

  “Humbaba’s taking fire!” Tripnee shouted.

  “Break off, Tripnee! Break off!” Adam yelled into his comm. “Let me do this one. Something alerted these guys. Stay back. Pick ’em off from a safe distance.”

  “To heck with that,” Tripnee argued back. “I’m going in, too.”

  Typical Tripnee. No common sense. Well, thank God he’d anticipated a fire fight and had hauled up and braced a heavy salon table top in front of each ship’s wheel on his and Tripnee’s boats.

  Now, an incoming hailstorm of lead ripped into the thick slab of mahogany inches in front of Adam’s face. The wood jumped and shook with the ongoing ratta-tat-tat pounding—but so far it was stopping the bullets. Adam prayed that Tripnee’s tabletop was doing the same.

  Dido and Humbaba closed on Profit from opposite directions. Blasting away, the AK-47s reached a frantic crescendo. Then, double whammy. The sharp bow stem of Adam’s Dido sliced right across Profit’s center cockpit, silencing, at least for the moment, the three guns firing from there. Humbaba, artfully guided by Tripnee, plowed across Profit’s forward deck straight into the forward hatch, instantly crushing the fourth shooter.

  With a Glock 19 in each hand, Adam peered over his barricade. A terrorist had popped up and was drawing a bead on Tripnee, his head exposed. Adam put two slugs into the guy’s right ear.

  “Who knows, might improve his hearing?”

  Not sure about the remaining terrorists, but taking no chances, Adam tucked his pistols into their holsters, and pulled a grenade from a leg pouch, pulled the pin on the grenade, counted the seconds to allow the least amount of time for the terrorists to throw it back, then tossed it at the Profit’s cockpit, expecting it to explode on impact. But, son of a gun, one of the terrorists, reacting like an expert baseball player, took his AK-47 by the barrel—despite the fact it had to be red hot—and used the weapon like a bat to knock the pineapple back toward Adam.

  Adam dove behind his tabletop in the nick of time.

  KA-BLAM. That was close. The mahogany slab had held, but just barely. In places, he could now see right through it.

  He saw two terrorists when he peered through the cracks. Realizing the splintered table top was on its last legs, they were bringing up their weapons and in moments would blast the weakened table to smithereens, and in the process turn him into a bloody pulp.

  Pop. Pop. Silence.

  “It’s okay,” Tripnee said. “They’re dead.”

  The collisions had ripped open the hulls of the terrorists’ sailboats, and all three were going down. Fast. After Tripnee came over from Humbaba, they both took off their body armor, and climbed down Profit’s companionway. The water was at knee level and rising. Adam went forward, while Tripnee worked sternward. Ripping open cabinets and closets, and submerging to lift up deck boards, they searched and searched, but found only money.

  Adam dove down in chest-deep water in Profit’s bow cabin now under Humbaba’s pulverized intruding bow, and struggled to lift deck boards. The floor panels were wedged tight, probably because the boat’s entire bow and hull had been distorted by the collisions.

  Finally, with his lungs screaming, in one final desperate attempt, drawing on his utter last reserves, he gave a mighty heave and the boards came free. There it was. A suitcase nuke, looking like it was still intact in its waterproof case.

  Grabbing the bomb, Adam tried to rise up to get a breath. But the sea filled the small cabin clear to the ceiling. Lungs screeching in agony, gripping the nuke, he dove back under Humbaba’s bow, and kicked, swam, crawled underwater back toward the companionway. Tripnee appeared when he was halfway and everything was going black. Blessed, amazing woman, she pressed her mouth to his and breathed into him a lungful of the most ethereal, delicious air any human had ever received.

  Together they swam for the companionway. At the surface, amazingly, Adam found he still held the nuke and Tripnee had two duffle bags, which turned out to be filled with hundred-dollar bills. The top of Profit’s cabin was underwater and sinking fast. Dido, Humbaba, Profit and a bunch of dead terrorists were going down. Sophia backed Dream Voyager’s sugar-scoop stern to within a few feet and, grabbing up their weapons, armor, the duffles, and nukes, Adam and Tripnee scrambled aboard.

  Chapter 18

  Cyclops: Apostasy

  “T he Messenger of Allah said, “If someone changes his religion—then strike off his head.” —al-Muwatta of Imam Malik (36.18.15)

  “When a person who has reached puberty and is sane, voluntarily apostatizes from Islam, he deserves to be killed.” —Reliance of the Traveller (Handbook of Islamic Law) o8.1. (o8.4 affirms that there is no penalty for killing an apostate). Sahih Bukhari (52:260). “…The Prophet said, ‘If somebody (a Muslim) discards his religion, kill him.’”

  There is a consensus by all four schools of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence (Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, and Shafi), as well as classical Shiite jurists, that apostates from Islam must be put to death. —Cyclops

  As Abu Bakr, Muhammad’s closest companion, explained in a letter at the time, his Prophet “struck whoever turned his back to him until he came to Islam, willingly or grudgingly.” Thus did Abu Bakr promise to “burn them with fire, slaughter them by any means, and take women and children captive” any who left Islam. —Hadith, al-Tabari, v10 p.55-57.

  “Ali, the fourth ‘Rightly Guided Caliph’ was Muhammad’s son-in-law and one of the first converts to Islam. He had people burned alive for wanting to leave Islam.” Hadith—al-Tabari, v.17 p.191.
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  “All systems of Islamic law have prescribed the death penalty for Muslims choosing to leave Islam for 1400 years.” The popular Muslim scholar, Zakir Naik, affirming in 2013 that the death penalty should be applied to those who leave Islam, on British television on the Peace TV channel.

  “Apostasy from Islam… is a crime punishable by death. The Prophet (peace be upon him) limited capital punishment to these three crimes only, saying: ‘The shedding of the blood of a Muslim is not lawful except for one of three reasons: a life for a life, a married person who commits zina (adultery), and one who turns aside from his religion and abandons the community.’”—Islamic scholar Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, head of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, and president of the International Union for Muslim Scholars, The Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam, 1960.

  “In any case, the heart of the matter is that children born of Muslim lineage will be considered Muslims and according to Islamic law, the door of apostasy will never be opened to them. If anyone of them renounces Islam, he will be as deserving of execution as the person who has renounced kufr [disbelief] to become a Muslim, and again has chosen the way of kufr. All the jurists of Islam agree with this decision. On this topic absolutely no difference exists among the experts of shari’ah. —Abul Ala Mawdudi, founder of Jamaat-e-Islami party, The Punishment of the Apostate According to Islamic Law, 1994.

  “Apostates from Islam can be murdered freely and legally… this… is necessary.”—Dr. Wafa Sultan, A God Who Hates, 2011.

  “Anyone who turns their back on Islam must be executed. This is confirmed by the words and deeds of Muhammad.”—Cyclops

  Chapter 19

  The Wide Aegean

  D ogu Kubilay’s Catana catamaran, Bora, raced south with Dream Voyager in hot pursuit.

  Sophia looked up from her drone-tracking screen. “Bora’s going between the islands of Antiparos and Paros. Maybe headed for Folegandros.”